The present invention relates to assemblies, systems, devices and the like for the brewing of a beverage; the invention may, for example, be used in automated beverage making machines and the like. The beverage may be brewed from an aqueous medium and an insoluble particulate beverage material (for example, from hot water and a coffee material, a tea material or the like). The invention in particular relates to means for discarding spent particulate beverage material from a brewing vessel. The following unless otherwise indicated will in particular describe the invention in relation to coffee making but it is to be understood that the invention may be applied to the making of infusions from other types of particulate beverage material (e.g. tea).
Coffee making devices are known which employ some type of mechanism for the removal of spent coffee grounds from the brewing vessel. Systems are known, for example, which require a two part brewing vessel wherein a floor component, which acts as a filter means for separating the beverage from the insoluble spent particulate material, is separable from the rest of the brewing vessel in order to permit removal of the spent coffee grounds from the floor. Such splitable brewing vessels are for example exploited with brewing devices of the piston cylinder type. For these type of brewers it is known, for example, to use a band of disposable filter paper in conveyor like fashion as part of the filtering mechanism, to scrap the spent coffee grounds off of the filter floor, etc. These type of systems due to the use of a splittable brewing vessel, a piston/cylinder mechanism, etc. are relatively mechanically complicated insofar as the separation of the spent or waste coffee grounds is concerned. In particular, a number of drawbacks and limitations are associated with piston/cylinder type combinations for coffee brewers, namely: a relatively large number of moving parts are associated with the separation of the two components of the brewing vessel. Accordingly, close attention must be paid to the repair and upkeep of the mechanism; more particularly, should the suction and compression characteristic of the system fall below that which is required, an expert repair person is needed in order to dismantle and rebuild the mechanism to replace or repair the piston/cylinder combination.
Various known types of brewing device are, for example, described in the following: U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,369,478, 3,565,641, 3,683,790, 4,271,753, 4,305,328, 4,791,859, 5,309,820, 5,312,637, 5,351,604, and 5,406,882.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have an assembly for a brewing apparatus having a mechanically simple spent particulate removal mechanism, i.e. a system which relies on a relatively low number of moving parts to achieve removal of spent coffee grounds from a brewing vessel. It in particular would be advantageous to have a brewing assembly which could exploit a brewing vessel which would not have to be splittable so as to expose spent particulate beverage material left on a filter floor.